How Do Gainfully Employed Do It?

Buzz1329 said:
Great attitude. And great choice of corals. Never heard of a yellow nano whip before, but after sampling pics of same, it looks pretty cool. Ditto with purple and red plating montis. I have both in my tanks. The red seems indestructible; the purple seems to need a bit more light, but both are beautiful. What are you using to filter the tank?

Mike
Click to expand...

I have a 1gallon HOB refugium full of chaeto/red gracilaria/marinepure biospheres and a simple marineland HOB filter.

You're right, the red monti is bullet-proof, but the purple rim monti needs some work. I'm about to reposition it higher in the tank. I tried some of the encrusting monti's too but I struggled with them. I've been patient enough to stay away from Acros for the time being.
 
seamonster124 said:
It's all about focus control.

I suggest everyone read "7 habits of highly effective people"

You learn to save your focus for things you actually have control over. Turns out we have control over very few things. Most people waste energy focusing on things they cannot do anything about; some crime in another state, ebola, sars, state of some other country, some actor in LA, etc.

So the idea is you focus only on things you can control and you will become very very good at those things; like parenting, your job, reef tank, etc.
Click to expand...

This^^^^

Soooooo much stress and problems are self-generated, we just choose not to accept that and blame something or someone else. I should know, I'm usually the worst offender!
 
Working 7 days a week still keep the tank moving forward. Also in charge of Fragswap in my signature and do a Video Podcast. Plenty of free time.:)
 
Let's see... I work 40 hours, but I work from home, most of the time anyway. Four daughters, but the youngest is twenty. Two year old grandson living with my wife and I. Three great pyrenees, two shih-tzu's, a flock of chickens, a fair number of acres to maintain...

Oh, I'm a automation developer... so I _know_ how to automate things. My aquarium? Very little automation. It's a hobby, I don't want it to run itself! No probes, I'll do my own testing. No controller, though I do use timers on certain things. First rule of automation: _everything_ is going to fail, eventually. Make sure that it fails in a safe condition.

If I block my overflow, the pump will quickly empty the return compartment in my sump, and flow will stop. Tank has plenty of capacity to hold this volume. Return pump has an auto shut-off when it runs dry. If I kill the pump, sump has plenty of capacity to handle what comes down, without relying on back flow valves. Basic fail-safe practices.

ATO is gravity feed to the sump with a float valve, 5g reservoir. Plumbed to the RO/DI system with a manual valve and a float valve. I have to turn on the water for an hour or so once a week, but the float will keep it from overflowing if I leave it on too long.

There's a battery powered water alarm mounted about 2 inches higher than normal water level in the pump compartment of my sump, if it overfills, I know about it. 5 gallons isn't enough to bother the system much anyway. \

There's a 2nd battery powered water alarm in the bottom of the stand. Stand is waterproofed where the sump is. Can hold about 20 gallons.

Plan for failure... it's going to happen.
 
I work ~50 hours/week, renovating the house any chance I get, while studying for my CCNA (Cisco certification) and I just started a new job. Trying to get this all done before kids (none yet), but I still don't have any spare time outside of these few items. My Apex has been a life saver. I have my 180 gallon tank to the point where I just have to feed the fish once per day and change water (~30 gallons) every 3 weeks or so.

ATO takes care of top-off.
Low dosage of Bio-pellets along with Chaeto handles my nutrients (no algae, at least not more than my Tang eat immediately).
Auto dosers setup for Alk/Cal
Empty skimmer every 2-3 days.
Fill up ATO container every few weeks.

Without the automation, I'm not sure how this tank would be working at this point. Now, it's all smooth sailing to the point where I'm surprised how beautiful this tank is looking with such little maintenance.
 
Reliable automation and failsafes. Most days, I have to do very little with the tank. I feed nori in the morning before work, frozen in the afternoon every 2 days. Change filter socks out every 3. Clean the glass about once a week. Drain the skimmer cup once a week on average. Water change approximately every 2 weeks (~15%).

Taking precautions to avoid disasters like randomly testing siphon breaks in the case of an outage, testing my leak detection sensors, etc. go a long way.

I've been lucky but as far as the day to day stuff goes, my tank no longer takes up much of my evenings or weekends (unless I want it too) ;)

Hope you have a better string of luck from here out!
 
uwish said:
Yeah I work 45 hours a week but we have no kids, that releases significant amount of time that would be spent with them and their activities. I get 24 flex days a year that I could employ if I had an emergency. That and my APEX tank controllers and my programming is so tight if my tanks fart I get an email about it. Then my regular maintenance routine usually catches things, throw in some luck and poof!
Click to expand...

Ahhh. I'm realizing how important the Apex email alerts are.

As a result of recent snafus, I have now adopted a 2x daily check of each tank, including:

water level in sump is at proper level;

reactors, skimmers, and ATS are flowing;

skimmer cup does not need to be emptied;

tubes from doser/ATO are not clogged and are still in place;

pumps in tank are all working (I have 4 in each so it's easy to lose track of one that has died);

heaters/controllers are maintaining set temp;

LED lights I use on one tank are still set on "custom," as opposed to "sunny," or "cloudy." (When working on tank, I've noticed that I can inadvertently brush my hand against control panel on front of light and change the setting.)

Plus, I have gone to daily testing of calc and alk; and every other day testing of NO3 and PO4.

And the next potential disaster will without a doubt involve something not covered by above checklist.

Mike
 
Properly set up automation with good equipment.


After 5 years of running my reef tank life got busy and I left the tank alone for 2 years. Granted my corals died, but my tank ran great for 2 years without being touched once and the fish were doing great. I restarted it in July this year to be SPS again, but it's good to know that the system can run for weeks at a time without messing with it and it will be just fine.
 
ColinAbi said:
Does school count lol.
Click to expand...

Absolutely not. How dare you even ask the question!

Kidding of course. Having worked my way through night school B.A. and J.D., while working full time during day, I know the drill. You have zero time left over. I kept FO FW tanks (10-30 gallons) while doing so and still found it a real challenge.

If you are attempting to keep a reef under similar circumstances, you may want to consider simplifying tank as other posts in thread have detailed.

In any event, good luck!

Mike
 
Get a bigger tank so less goes wrong ;)

Honestly, besides a weekly test and glass cleaning I really don't do much.

Feed three times a day, that's it for daily.

ATO, Automatic Water Changes, APEX, etc...
 
Yikes, I think my 180 is trying to kill itself. This am, I went through the checklist and found the MJ 600 on GFO/GAC reactor had died overnight. Removed, reactor, replaced media, replaced MJ 600 (my sweet lord but MJ pumps bite) with Jabao DC 2000 pump set at lowest level and on we go.

When doing late afternoon feeding, and going through check list again, I realized I had turned Tunze ATO pump off when removing reactor for servicing in am and forgot to turn it back on.

Something is happening here and you don't know what it is? Do you Mr. Buzz.
 
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